Identification and Abundance of Pest Causing Unsuccessful Mangrove Rehabilitation

Wide areas mangrove forest at Aceh have been destroyed due to tsunami event in 2004. Damaging mangrove vegetation becomes a problem, especially in decreasing the production of organic matter and caused coastal abration. Rehabilitation is the most common solution to reforest mangrove area. However, this program has been unsuccessful in some areas possibly because of pest. The purposes of this study were to identify species of pests and their abudance, and to compare the abudance of pest under different inundation regime. Sampling of seedling of mangrove rehabilitation and pests were done by using transect quadrate 1m x 1m. The results showed that there were four species of pest found in the area, i.e. Balanus amphitrite, Sesarma sp., Pteroma plagiophleps, and Clibanarius sp. B. amphitrite had the highest abudance, and there was a significantly different the abudance of B. amphitrite between site next to sea and site next to the land. The stability of community was low; it showed by low diversity index, and high dominance. There was a correlation between salinity and abudance of pest, so the higher the salinity the higher the pest abudance. The results of this study indicate that one of the causes of the failure of mangrove rehabilitation in Aceh is a pest that is dominated by B. amphitrite.